DHARMA logos

The DHARMA Initiative is represented by a series of distinct eight-sided logos, based on the traditional Taoist Bagua or pa kua ("eight trigrams" in Chinese). One is believed to be a general logo, representing the Initiative as a whole. The other logos seem to be designed specifically for each of the various DHARMA Initiative activities, in particular for the stations on the Island. These station logos are spray-painted on walls and printed on various items in the stations; they are also featured in the orientation films. For clarity, a "logo" is defined here to be something painted or physically carved, while a "graphic" is something shown in a video.

Contents

General info

The logos are octagonal and the outer parts of the octagon are derived from the I Ching (below). Most of the logos also feature the word "DHARMA" across its center, except for the Hydra, the Pearl, the Flame and the Looking Glass logos that feature it below the center. The main differences between the logos lie in the circular central part, which contains a unique symbol for each station. Four of these symbols are drawn on the blast door map. With the exception of the Staff logo which has red in its central part, all of them appear in black and white. When the logo is painted on a wall, the outline seems to have gaps. However, this is probably due to the stencils used to spray paint the logos.

The logos are usually black on a white or neutral background, unless they are seen as a graphic on a video where the colors are inverted to a white logo on a black background. However, the Pearl logo is white on black background, even when it is presented outside of a video. For example, although the Swan logo is a black logo on white background, the colors are inverted for the Swan Orientation Video. On the other hand, the Pearl's logo is always inverted in color, even if not found on the video itself.

Non-canon appearances

"Backwards R" logo

Fake logo, later found on ABC's site

The promo banner, with the logo

The online store; note the logo on banner.

This logo was originally thought to be a fake found on Retrieveroftruth.com (different from the real site Retrieversoftruth.com). Note the backwards "R".
It was later found (8/16/07) on the ABC Lost store's "DHARMA GEAR" page, seen here.

The logo was still present as of 05/29/08, unchanged, even after new products were added to the ABC store. It is notable that the "fake logo" is placed, in the same photograph, next to the doors to the Swan, with the presumably real logo on said doors. See the "Promo Banner" picture.

This logo was believed to be fake, but its presence on the ABC site raises questions about its origins. As it has not appeared in the show itself, it cannot be considered canon.

The validity of this logo is yet to be confirmed, or if it was just an error by a web designer, and not a plot point.

The logo is standardly seen with an inverted color scheme. This is most likely to differentiate this logo from a simple blank DHARMA Initiative logo, showing it as a white pearl, which would be invisible in the standard color scheme, or misrepresenting if it were a black circle.

Impressed on the hard hats of DHARMA builders (including Daniel Faraday) in the construction of the Orchid station (Pierre Chang also wore a hard hat when he entered the unfinished station.) ("Because You Left")

Unidentified canon logos

"Door" logo

This logo appears on the door of what was presumed to be a station but turned out to be a deception. The door had only a rock wall behind it and appears to be just a part of a facade encampment called the decoy village by the Others.

The image in the center of the logo is a rectangle, with a horizontal line shooting through the center.

It is not clear yet whether this logo is also connected to a station or only to the psychology test (see below).

Many Lost fans had formerly referred to this logo as "The Raven", due to the image's appearance, and alluding to the Edgar Allen Poe character, which drove a man to insanity. However, this was discontinued after the revealing of the real image on the logo (below).

It is the Looking Glass logo inverted with a clock on the neck of the rabbit with the time being 815.

Modernized logo

Modern Dharma logo

Modern Dharma logo with color

In the alternate reality gameDharma Initiative Recruiting Project, the modern reincarnation of the DHARMA initiative uses a modernized logo that eliminates much of the detail in the original DHARMA logo. The trigrams of the I-Ching are fused together, and the border is eliminated. The text "Dharma Initiative" is spelled out in Futura typeface, with the lowercase "Dharma" in bold.
Also of note is the new arrangement of the trigrams: the arrangement of the standard logo was turned 90 degrees clockwise.

"Fuel" logo

The logos' origins

Bagua

The old Korean flag and the Dharma Logo comparison

A Bagua map and its related properties

The octagonal diagrams with the line-symbols (called "trigrams") surrounding the center DHARMA Initiative symbols are derived from a fundamental philosophical concept in ancient China known as Bagua. In Chinese, ba means the number eight and gua means "trigram"; thus the term ba gua signifies the eight trigrams. [3] The concept of Bagua is applied not only to Chinese Taoist thought and the "I Ching", but is also used in other domains of Chinese culture, such as feng shui, martial arts, navigation, etc.

All DHARMA Initiative logos seen so far have the trigrams around the outside. Each trigram consists of three lines that can be either:

a straight line (for male; light; the odd numbers 1,3,5,...) or

a line with a break (for female; darkness; the even numbers 2,4,6,...).

Eight combinations are possible.

The trigrams that surround the center of the symbol are also identical to those found on what is believed to be the earliest recorded flag of South Korea.

I Ching

The I Ching (Pinyin for Chinese 易经, "Book of Changes" or "Classic of Changes") is the oldest of the Chinese classic texts. It describes an ancient system of cosmology and philosophy which is at the heart of Chinese cultural beliefs. The philosophy centers on the ideas of the dynamic balance of opposites, the evolution of events as a process, and acceptance of the inevitability of change. It also makes use of the Bagua concept.

The Bagua of the I Ching was one of the first examples of binary code, which later became the basis of almost all-digital programming today. Each individual trigram is made up of individual units of "kwae"--yin (divided dash) and yang (undivided dash). The eight trigrams are the natural/elemental foundations for the 64 "hexagrams" (two trigrams combined) that make the I Ching in ancient Chinese philosophy.

A table of the eight possible trigrams and their related properties according to the I Ching:

The King Wen sequence is the current sequence of the hexagrams in the traditional book and is also the same sequence used for the DHARMA Initiative symbol but turned inside out. There is another called the Later Heaven edition where the trigrams have a different arrangement.[4]

Trivia

boarding pass

A DHARMA logo, similar to the Pearl logo, appears in the first seconds of Cloverfield (2008).